


As Do I

by berryblonde



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff and Angst, M/M, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 18:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17986655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berryblonde/pseuds/berryblonde
Summary: A story of two souls, bound to each other, as told by various injuries sustained in a lifetime.





	As Do I

**Author's Note:**

> Did I write this instead of the two multi-chaptered fics i have in the works? Yes. Do I feel guilty for that? Maybe a little bit, but you can't control inspiration. Hope you guys enjoy!

_ His knee scraped open, bleeding profusely. _

It happens suddenly, without warning. He didn’t fall, his small hands are gripping his twin brother’s arm tightly, tears rushing to his eyes. He’s five when the woman at the home they’re living at explains the concept of soulmates to him and Niles. Connor watches her with big eyes and listens with eager ears as she talks about that special person that was meant for you. That he would share their pain, their physical hurt for all his life. It’s then that he vows to take the best care of his injuries, be they truly his or stemming from the person at the other side of the connection, vows to never worry his soulmate.

 

_ An ache in his chest, like he’s about to die. _

At six years, he’s already breaking his promise when he’s being rushed into the hospital. Connor recognizes this pain as his own, even at such a young age. Knows that what he’s feeling isn’t normal. And he finds out soon that his heart is weak, and that he closely escaped death after overexerting himself, chasing around his brother and the other children at the home. He’d have to be more careful from now on, he’s being told.

 

_ His shin, bruised and swollen. _

And small hands running over like a quiet apology, hoping that his soulmate would forgive him. He’s always careful, so careful. He doesn’t roughhouse with the other boys anymore, doesn’t try and chase the home’s cat. It’s not just because of the fragile little heart beating in his chest. He doesn’t want his soulmate to be scared or worried, doesn’t want them to be hurt because of him.

But today he trips and falls and the tears in his eyes are from guilt instead of pain. Once they subside he sits there, watching the other kids play, gently rubbing his fingers along the bruise, careful not to actually touch it where hurts. Niles gives him a weird look, but he doesn’t care.

Connor isn’t even sure whether his soulmate can feel the gentle touch, but he hopes they do as he silently continues to say sorry to them in the only way he can think of.

 

_ A bruise around his wrist, _

like someone had grabbed it violently, harsher than it should ever be allowed, and even at the tender age of eight he recognizes the implications: someone is hurting his soulmate, be it on purpose or not. He spends days staring at the blooming purple and blue that makes his heart ache in different ways than the usual bruised and scraped knees and elbows and palms do, that make worry spike in his young mind. Not even Niles can console him when he wakes up crying, his wrist throbbing with pain, in a room that’s so new to him, with a new family that’s not his family and he knows they never will be.

 

_ A bruise on his jaw, _

and many more on his arm and shoulder and back, as if someone had grabbed his soulmate, had punched them and knocked them back against a wall. Everyone is worried about him, they ask what could have possible happened to the quiet and careful twelve-year old boy in their care when they weren’t looking, and he knows their worry lessens when he tells them it’s not him but his soulmate that’s hurt, but for him it’s not a consolation. It’s panic and anxiousness and the drowning desire to help them. After all, Connor is beginning to understand what the increasing number of bruises means, and his heart clenches in pain for a person he doesn’t even know.

Niles grabs his arm and Connor flinches, but his brother tells him not to dwell on it. There’s nothing he can do, and they have someone important to meet.

 

_ Blood, flowing from his nose. _

When he wakes up, he is covered in red, Niles staring at him in horror. They still share a room, Hank offered them each their own one but they refused, and Connor is even more grateful for it now. He’s never been free of bruises, and he hates it more than anything else, he writes letters to his soulmate in his mind, wishing they could reach them and that he could save them from what they have to endure.

The pain is white and hot and blinding as it shoots up his features, muffled sobs escaping his throat as he sits on his bed, covering the sheets with red, red, red, sprinkling it like an artist without intention, Niles running to get Hank, quiet and careful not to wake up Cole sleeping in the room next to them. Isabelle is long gone, having passed from the illness that had plagued her for years before, leaving Hank to care for all three children on his own.

Sometimes Connor fears that he will be forced to face the same fate as their foster mother one day, mostly when the ache in his chest returns, and he knows it’s not from the constant worry about his soulmate.

Niles returns with Hank. They stop the bleeding, and at fifteen, Connor cries into the shoulder of his adoptive father while his brother gently pats his back, tears mixing with the last drops of blood leaking from his nose.

He’s being held tightly, and for now, everything will be alright. But when he looks into the mirror a few days later there’s scar tissue where there had been none, and his chest feels heavy with the knowledge that it isn’t his.

 

_ A gunshot wound in his shoulder. _

It’s definitely the worst injury yet, and it happens at the worst of times, just as he’s about to walk to class in the morning. The injuries had gotten less ever since he had been around sixteen, and he thought, hoped so badly that his soulmate, wherever they were had gotten out of that situation, that it wasn’t just a temporary break in his suffering, in  _ their _ suffering. When his shoulder starts bleeding right there on the street he can’t help but scream in agony, Kara next to him frantically doing her best to stop the blood flow.

They’re nursing students after all, they’re prepared. Connor is more than anyone, no amount of slowing down has made him forget the countless bruises and bandages and injuries. No amount of smiles and familial comfort will make him forget the pain and crying and worry.

As Kara patches him up he wonders, maybe even hopes so, whether his soulmate had taken up a dangerous profession. The idea is less painful than the thought of them being mugged, attacked, assaulted, powerless and bleeding in an alley.

The red stops, his shirt is soaked but he assures Kara that he can go to class today, getting up from where he had been leaning against a brick wall.

It is just as red as his formerly white dress shirt. He would need a change of clothing, he thinks as Kara fusses over him.

Another scar added to the collection.

 

_ A sharp pain in his shoulder, _

like he’s being stabbed with a needle over and over again. In the year since the day his shoulder tore open in broad daylight a stab wound and various smaller bruises and scrapes and cuts had appeared but this— feels different. Connor tries to concentrate on his class, Kara next to him glancing over worriedly, and when it hurts particularly badly Connor for a second thinks about talking to his doctor about the connecting weakening medication he had been offered— like those whose soulmates seem to get into all kinds of danger do.

It’s half an hour later that he realized that his soulmate is probably getting a tattoo right now— probably to cover the scar they shared. The effects wouldn’t translate onto Connor, and he’s not sure whether he’s grateful or not for it, having to endure all the pain and get none of the good parts out of it.

When the same pain returns the second and third time he really hopes for his soulmate that the tattoo is a damn good one, or otherwise he would murder them with his own hands.

 

_ Pain shooting through his arm, _

as if it’s broken, right in the middle of their final exam. He curses and prays that it will go over soon. Whatever profession his soulmate chose, he hates it.

At least it’s not his dominant arm, he thinks as he writes on, answers questions about patient care and treatment of various injuries and different kinds of medication.

When he’s done he meets with Kara, and the way he’s holding his arm makes her features move with concern. Unlike him, the young woman who had been his friend all throughout nursing school had already found his soulmate. She absentmindedly rubs the scar on the back of her hand as Connor walks next to her in silence, and Connor can’t help but do the same with the on his shoulder— the one he knows is now covered in ink on the body connected to his.

She knows about his complicated soulmate and he couldn’t be more grateful for her support.

 

_ A papercut on his index finger, _

and it’s not his this time. He mutters a curse under his breath before he rushes towards the hospital he’s working at, already running late from stopping to get a cup of coffee for him and Kara on his usual route to work. He’s glad she still works with him, and he ignores his stinging finger as he slides into the staff room, setting down the cups and pulling on a pair of clean scrubs before starting to make his rounds.

And so he walks around the hospital, visiting patients he knows and those he doesn’t, attends staff meetings and talks to patients and relatives. His favorite this time is probably a young woman by the name of North, whose bruises share a strange similarity with the ones his brother had been covered in just this morning when Connor had left their shared apartment. The young martial artist had gotten hurt badly in one of her fights and had to stay in for observation, her friends sitting at her side during visiting hours and trying to keep her temper under control.

Connor vows to introduce her to Niles once she is better, be they meant for each other or not.

When Tina Chen’s partner asks him about her condition he doesn’t know how to respond. The police officer had gotten injured on duty and hasn’t woken up yet, but Connor can’t bring himself to tell the man in front of him how bad her chances are at the moment, not with how tired the rugged man looks, deep bags under his stormy gray eyes in a face that looks strangely familiar to Connor.

He regrets not asking the man for a name, especially when Officer Chen suddenly gets better days after, and he doesn’t have a chance to ever so much as catch another glimpse at her partner.

 

_ Blood flowing from his stomach. _

He’s in the staff room when it happens, his fingers itching for doing something other than paperwork. he patches himself up as best as he can with the help of the other nurses, and he knows his soulmate has been stabbed. Again.

He vows to chew them out for all of this once he meets them, a man with a black eye kneeling down next to him as they try to apply a bandage.

When the pain and the blood suddenly stop he knows his soulmate has been given temporary suppressions, like he had when he had gotten surgery a few months ago. He gets up and remembers the haze he had been in, the feeling of something missing, and he wishes deeply that his soulmate doesn’t feel lonely.

But medication means that his soulmate is in care now.

He doesn’t have time to ponder it when half an hour later, multiple injured officers arrive, among them, a familiar face. It’s gone before Connor can take a proper look at the nose, and he curses himself for not doing so last time.

 

_ A blinding pain in his collarbone, _

and he has a feeling that his soulmate’s has just been broken. A few minutes later his fingers start to hurt, one after the other, sharp enough to drive tears to his eyes. Bruises continue blooming all over his body, and he can’t remember the last time he has been this worried about his soulmate.

An hour later, he’s seated in the staff room because despite being a proper nurse now he’s useless in his current condition. He’s beginning to feel drowsy, as if his soulmate is falling unconscious, the pain finally lifting, his mind now foggy but his limbs no longer on fire.

And then it returns, with more force than ever, and Connor thinks he’s about to die when the last of his fingers feels as if it had been broken. Despite the pain he’s pacing through the staff room, unable to be comforted by Kara who has offered to call Niles or North or Cole multiple times now. He refuses, and his heavy breathing echoes alongside his steps, worried eyes following him.

Until suddenly, the pain is gone. And he can see the scars on his hand start to disappear. His heart in his chest is beating heavily against his ribcage, thud, thud, thud, tears hot behind his eyelids as he presses them shut. This can’t be happening, he thinks, and when Kara notices he’s crying she comes over and places a hand on his shoulder and he flinches.

Not there, he thinks, not where his scar is— was, he thinks, pain shooting through his chest. She looks guilty, but he can’t bring himself to care. Whatever had happened, his soulmate seemed to be gone.

He sobs and through it he barely notices Kara leaving, doesn’t know how much time has passed. He hears her words through a veil, as if the whole world had been muffled in his grief.  _ Emergency surgery _ , she says.  _ They need nurses _ , she says.  _ I’m sorry, Connor, _ she says. And then she’s gone and he’s alone with himself, more alone than he has ever been. It’s there that he starts to understand Hank’s downward spiraling after the death of his wife.

So he sits there, on the floor, his heart heavy and his face wet with tears. No one is there to comfort him, and he can’t bring himself to call his brother or his brother’s fiancée— not right now.

He doesn’t even notice his scars slowly returning at first, and his breath hitches when he wipes his hand across his face, trying to dry the tears.

They’re not soft and smooth like they were seconds ago. They’re scarred and uneven like they had been for years and he’s crying again, but it’s relief and joy and anger all at once, relief and joy that his soulmate somehow, miraculously, is alive, angry at them for putting him through this.

But for the moment he just continues to sit there, the pain not returning but the scars doing so, and he thinks, hopes, that it simply means that his soulmate had received suppressants.

Connor is still sitting there between scrubs and tissues when the pain returns, and he doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy about the unpleasant sensation.

When Kara returns she finds him, with all of his scars returned, and as soon as she exchanges her bloody scrubs for clean ones she drops to her knees and hugs him, whispering words of encouragement as the tears begin the flow again.

It takes a few more minutes for Connor to get up and feel okay enough to return to duty, but Kara sends him home, and forces him to take the next day off.

He complies, and in his mind he marks the day down as one of the worst ones he had ever had, if not the worst.

In his mind, he begins writing a letter again, never to be brought to paper.

 

_ The pain is dull now, _

but it’s still there, and he’s thankful for it. He returns to work only after North and Niles made sure he’s okay. He doesn’t feel like he is, yet, but life needs to go on and so does he.

At work he gets concerned looks all around and Connor can feel how forced his smile is when he tries to put on an assuring expression, one that’s supposed to say “everything is fine”. But he tries, and that’s the most important part to him.

His chest hurts, and he’s scared that his heart is acting up again. With gentle fingers he touches the scar he has near his heart, one of the very few ones he and his soulmate share that is not from them but from him instead.

He’s beginning to make his round under Kara’s worried glance, when he sees a new name on his clipboard.

_ Gavin Reed _ .

His heart clenches when he reads it, and he feels affected in the strangest of ways as he walks from room to room, adjusts IVs and assures patients and asks them to fill out meal orders for the following day.

It’s one of the last rooms of his round, and when he enters he sees the man he remembers from years ago, lying in the hospital bed, skin pale from what he presumes is bloodless, cuts all over his face, his fingers and collarbones broken, asleep.

He quietly adjusts the man’s IV and leaves painkillers and a meal sheet on the small table next to the bed, and then he leaves.

 

_ A sharp pain in his finger, _

it’s all too familiar. He’s on the phone with Chloe when it happens, the young woman a recent addition to his circle of friends. He listens to her soft voice as the pain ebbs over, and suddenly he feels as if he’s waking up, the sensation becoming much more pronounced. He breathes heavily and asks Chloe to talk to him later.

He’s right in his assumption, and the buzzer for room 204 goes off seconds after the call has ended.

On unsteady legs he gets up and grabs a bunch of painkillers before he moves into the hallways and to Gavin Reed’s room.

This time, unlike during all his other visits, the man is awake, and he’s alone. Visiting hours have not started yet, after all.

He’s frozen, and he just stands there for seconds turning to minutes while they stare at each other, watching the matching injuries on the other’s face, recognition shining in Gavin’s eyes.

Connor breathes out, relieved, and then he moves to refill his IV.

 

_ A bruise on his cheekbone, _

and Connor sighs when his phone rings about ten minutes later. Gavin’s on the other end, and he’s angry. It’s only been a few weeks since the man has been allowed back into active duty, around three months since he and Connor met.

He’s an ass, but he’s growing on Connor, slowly but surely. He never expected his soulmate to be such a harsh and rude man like Gavin is, but he can’t help but smile when he hears his voice, low and angry and deep.

Kara teases him about the goofy expression on his face when he hangs up, but he doesn’t quite care— it’s nice to hear from Gavin, not to worry about him as much anymore.

 

_ A dull pain in the back of his head _

when Gavin first kisses him and accidentally knocks him into the wall, and judging by Gavin’s hissing, the other feels it too. A chuckle escapes Connor’s lips as he pulls the other in closer, closer, closer, greedy and hungry for more of him, more warmth, more contact, more of this.

He turns gentler now, hands on Connor’s hips as they slowly move towards Gavin’s raggedy old couch, waking Gilbert up in the process.

And he finally feels like he’s truly where he belongs, Gavin pressing him into the couch and his lips and hands all over him, fire in his veins, an unspoken “I love you” between them.

Because he does, he knows it. But he’s waiting for the perfect opportunity to say it.

 

_ A cut in his fingers, _

and a laugh escapes his lips. Connor knows Gavin is mildly tipsy, and he knows the man probably managed to cut his finger somewhere where he is on the other end of the room, doing whatever mischief he and Elijah got up to this time.

The wedding is beautiful, and he can only hope his and Gavin’s will be the same once they do get married. For him, there is no doubt in his mind that he does want to, but approaching the topic is hard.

He’s two glasses of wine in as he chats with North, a blindingly bright smile on her face as she looks at her newly-wed husband sitting next to them, one arm around North and the other holding a glass of wine of his own.

When Connor leaves them in the middle of the night to find Gavin he finds the other with a kitty band-aid around his finger, fidgeting with some of the decoration that he and Elijah accidentally tore down.

He whisks him away, and they dance in the quiet of the night, in a corner where no one can see them.

 

_ Pain shooting up leg, _

the one he had broken while trying to put up Christmas lights in his, formerly his and Niles’ apartment, tripping and falling down the ladder. Christmas and New Year’s are long over now, but his leg is still in a cast and occasionally, he still feels the pain. It takes a few seconds, but then Gavin is by his side, asking whether he’s okay, worried about his boyfriend.

The word boyfriend still feels so good and his mind that he can’t help the smile tugging at the corners of his lips, much less so when Gavin sets down the pizza menus down onto the small table in front of Gavin’s couch.

As they try and order they get into a small, but heated debate about the most superior pizza toppings. Gavin makes fun of Connor’s love for pineapple and fish on it, while Connor calls him boring for always ordering pizza with salami and nothing more.

In the end,  they’re laughing tears and Connor is almost forgetting the pain and itching of his leg beneath the case as he pulls Gavin close and kisses him, smiling against the other’s lips.

 

_ A burning sensation all over his hand, _

and he shoots up in bed immediately, groaning from the pain. He doesn’t know what’s happened yet, but he worries for Gavin, almost out of habit. For a second, his heart is beating heavily against his ribcage as he gets out of their shared bed in their shared apartment and walks out into the kitchen, only to find Gavin cursing loudly, holding his hand under cold water, spilled coffee all over the kitchen table.

Connor can’t help the small laugh that escapes him, growing even louder as Gavin glares at him before the man wraps his injured hand up with wet kitchen towels.

He gets breakfast, and giving his fiancé a good morning kiss makes everything that much better.

 

_ A bump against his forehead, _

Gavin cursing as he feels it too, frantically apologizing. The older man insisted on carrying Connor over the threshold of their house after their wedding, still in their tuxes.

There were still dried tears on his face, their vows too beautiful, too meaningful to hold them back. Connor can’t bring himself to be mad at Gavin even when his head is throbbing, but he does wriggle out of his boyfriends— no, his  _ husband’s _ — arms, only to wrap them around the other’s neck and pull him inside.

Warmth bubbled inside of him as their bodies pressed together, clothes becoming increasingly less between whispered declarations of love and trust and adoration, their way to the bedroom feeling painfully long, the mattress blissfully soft when Gavin pushes him down and softly, sweetly holds him all night, sweat between them and their clothing all over the floor.

They would have to bring the borrowed tuxes to the dry cleaners before returning them.

 

_ Scratches on his arm, _

he knows they’re from Gilbert, that Gavin is on medical leave once more and at home playing with their cats, only leaving the house to attend his therapy sessions. He hates the other getting hurt, he hates sitting by his hospital bed and crying his eyes out, mumbling soft “I love you’s” and hoping that the other is okay.

He hates it, but he loves Gavin too much to walk away from him and the pain his profession as a Detective brings.

They’re almost forty, and Connor can only think about how fast the time seems to fly now that he’s with Gavin.

He wonders if it’s the same for Chloe and Elijah and North and Niles and Markus and Simon and Cole and Thea.

 

_ His back, aching, _

and he can’t tell whether it’s his own pain or Gavin’s. Knowing Gavin and the way he frantically takes care of his body, disregarding his smoking, to be able to serve in the force as long as he can, it’s probably Connor’s.

It’s only a week until their fifteenth wedding anniversary, and he can’t help but smile as he applies one of their heat bottles to his back. Being on the wrong side of forty brings his downsides, especially for someone like him with an already fragile health and a bad back from hours of reading in bad positions, but his husband only seems to grow handsomer with the years.

Connor sincerely hopes they have many more left.

 

_ His hip, crushed. _

When he’s informed that someone had tried to drive Gavin and his partner off the road he awakes from the stupor he has been in ever since Hank’s death, where not even Gavin or his brothers had been able to reach him, overcome with worry. He rushes to the hospital despite it being his day off, and he sits with his husband until he wakes up, his own pain forgotten when the other squeezes his scarred hand.

 

_ His lungs, burning. _

He knows it before he can hear it, moving closer to the living room. He knows that the years of smoking had taken a toll on Gavin’s health and his lungs especially, and he regrets not asking the other man to stop with more force behind it. 

He can’t do anything anymore, other than be there for his husband while he coughs and struggles to breath, offering to bring something to drink or call the doctor.

 

_ His chest, about to explode. _

He’s sixty-seven when he has his first heart attack, and his husband, now a Captain is right at his side when he wakes up.

He’s scared, and tears stream down his face but when he wakes up to a hand closely grasping his he knows that no matter how much or little time they have left they’re worth it.

 

When he’s seventy-two, his scars fade, and they’re not coming back this time.

It’s two months later that his heart gives out under all the grief, but when he leaves, it’s with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave me your thoughts, i'd love to know your opinion <3 Feel free to drop by and talk to me on tumblr [@berry--blonde](https://berry--blonde.tumblr.com)! I'm always happy to hear from you guys <3


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